We are sick of hearing from stadium management and the AFL that the penetrometer readings at the ground are within acceptable parameters.

The two WA-based clubs beg to differ as the injuries mount and the difference between shoving a penetrometer into a surface and dropping a size 14 foot on it repeatedly beneath 100kg of athlete is huge.

We can report the surface is taking a lot of spin and we can expect more: Stadium boss Mike McKenna said it was suffering from a “perception gap” between what the penetrometers were telling them and what the athletes were telling them.

That would be easier for footballers to swallow if they were were merely suffering from the “perception” they were suffering from stress fractures.

The machine that goes Ping might help if a footballer sustains a career-ending injury and decides to take legal action against the AFL or the stadium. I can picture the scene in court now:

Judge: Do we have any scientific measures on how hard the surface was?

Counsel: Penetrometer readings at the ground were always within acceptable parameters your honour.

Judge: Any other measures used?

Counsel: We also used the machine that goes Ping.

Judge: I see. What did that machine tell you?

Counsel: It went Ping your honour.

Judge: And what does that tell you?

Counsel: We have no idea.

But we do have some idea. We know that Sydney blamed the stadium surface for a severely bruised heel that affected Lance Franklin last season. We know that West Coast were hit by a spike in foot and toe problems at the end of last season which carried on into summer.

Willie Rioli had an early season “stress reaction” in his foot. Defender Tom Barrass will miss three months with a stress fracture.

Fremantle have lost Matt Taberner to stress fractures in the two seasons at the stadium.

Rory Lobb and Alex Pearce have also sustained foot or ankle fractures.

Port Adelaide, due to play Fremantle and having already played West Coast, left Charlie Dixon and Ollie Wines at home, declaring they were “really mindful” of the surface.

You can’t blame them: The minds or at least heads of Karl Amon and Robbie Gray were used by Eagle Nic Naitanui and Docker Ryan Nyhuis for unofficial surface hardness tests in games last year.

Amon got a delayed concussion. Gray was knocked out.

Naitanui received a week’s suspension, Nyhuis three. Clearly these tests were not within the AFL’s acceptable parameters.

The first time I walked on the stadium surface at the start of the 2018 season I had a three word reaction: “f... that’s hard”. Apologies for the “perception” of bad language. I am the son of a Darkan shearer/farmer. I never took to shearing, but did pick up the language.

I walked on the turf at the start of this season. It had softened on the top few centimetres but still felt flat and hard beneath.

The clubs and VenuesLive agree that is the pattern here: it starts the season hard and then softens. It is fair to say all parties are working on it.

And they should be. This is one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world and, a year-and-a-half in,they haven’t got the grass in the middle of it right.

While the Eagles and Dockers are victims here, having committed to play at the ground with no control over the surface, there is some karma for the AFL. The league, having adopted the rabid dog approach to the stadium negotiation, had at last count contributed nothing to the capital cost of a structure which took about $950 million to build.

Hopefully this resolves itself over time but if it doesn’t, and a grass do-over is required, perhaps the AFL could at least fund that.